[Aliblahba]

I fully support male veganism. Less competition for me. While they are complaining to the bartender about not having gluten free beer, and wondering if the other selections came from countries that support child labor or rape culture, I've already grabbed my V&T and am opening the bishes.

Then when they finally come over to cut in, holding the beer with both hands cause they are too weak, I just mean mug them till they spill their shit and run off.

I may start a blog on this, more guys need to stop consuming animals. 100% fruits and veggies gents. You'll become a better man. Trust me.

[Starke]

I have observed that an astonishing amount of the better looking women I encounter these days are vegans, and I know a few guys at my old tennis club who are thriving on it.

I've considered trying it one day, but the produce where I live isn't the freshest and I'm a lazy chef.

[bacon]

I read this the other day it was a critic of Bill Clintons Vegan Diet but it seems relevant to the discussion.

Quote:

The former president is now a devoted vegan, meaning no meat, fish or dairy products, and he has pursued a healthier way of life for more than three years. While I figured our lunch menu might be bland, that would be a small price to pay for private time with a world leader who is anything but.

As we enter a private room overlooking Manhattan’s busy Rockefeller Center, I’m struck with a dazzling kaleidoscope of a dozen delicious dishes: including roasted cauliflower and cherry tomatoes, spiced and herbed quinoa with green onions, shredded red beets in vinaigrette, garlicky hummus with raw vegetable batons, Asian-inspired snow pea salad, an assortment of fresh roasted nuts, plates of sliced melon and strawberries, and rich, toothsome gigante beans tossed with onions in extra-virgin olive oil.

Hmmm … toss in some salmon or grass-fed beef, that would almost be a whole-foods paleo diet. I think we’re getting a clue here as to why Clinton’s diet has improved his health – and it isn’t because he gave up meat.

Clinton traces his decision to change back to the morning in February 2010 when he woke up looking pale and feeling tired. His cardiologist quickly brought him into New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery to insert a pair of stents. One of his veins had given out, a frequent complication following the quadruple-bypass surgery he had undergone in 2004.

Prodded into action, Clinton started by rereading Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease, which urges a strict, low-fat, plant-based regimen, along with two books that were, if possible, even more militantly vegan: Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, by Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., and The China Study, by Cornell biochemist T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. (When I suffered a heart attack in late November 2010, Clinton sent me all three books.)

As Denise Minger pointed out her AHS 2011 speech, what do Ornish, McDougall, Esselstyn and other big-name doctors promoting veganism as the cure for heart disease have in common? They have their patients give up sugar, white flour (and most other refined carbohydrates), processed vegetable oils, processed foods, smoking and alcohol. Oh, and meat and dairy products, too. They also prescribe lots and lots of fresh vegetables.

Then when their patients get better, they declare that they’ve proved meat causes heart disease. It’s not the meat, of course. It’s all the other junk the vegan doctors have their patients stop eating. Let’s keep reading:

He no longer craves steaks, but bread is a potential pitfall. “Heavily processed carbs, you really have to control that,” he says. When Caldwell Esselstyn spotted a picture of him on the Internet, eating a dinner roll at a banquet, the renowned doctor dispatched a sharply worded email message: “I’ll remind you one more time, I’ve treated a lot of vegans for heart disease.”

Excuse me?! Did I read that correctly? Let me copy and paste that last bit again and see if it was just my computer playing tricks on me.

When Caldwell Esselstyn spotted a picture of him on the Internet, eating a dinner roll at a banquet, the renowned doctor dispatched a sharply worded email message: “I’ll remind you one more time, I’ve treated a lot of vegans for heart disease.”

That can’t be right. Vegans don’t get heart disease. Just ask them. Meat and dairy products cause heart disease, and vegans don’t eat that stuff. Maybe if I just copy and paste the last sentence …

“I’ll remind you one more time, I’ve treated a lot of vegans for heart disease.”

Well, well, well … the famous vegan doctor doesn’t want Bill Clinton to eat a white-flour dinner roll because he’s treated a lot of vegans for heart disease. I can only conclude that the famous vegan doctor believes white flour can promote heart disease. But surely other heavy starches are fine. Let’s see how many of those Bill Clinton is consuming:

The former president has a tip for those who crave starchy food: “You can make whipped cauliflower as a substitute for mashed potatoes, and it’s great.”

Uh … um … why would a vegan need to find a substitute for mashed potatoes? Potatoes are vegan, and it’s those evil non-vegan foods that cause weight gain and heart disease. Just ask the vegans. Thank goodness Clinton doesn’t eat, say, eggs or fish.

Once a week or so, he will have a helping of organic salmon or an omelet made with omega-3-fortified eggs, to maintain iron, zinc and muscle mass.

Uh … um … isn’t a vegan who eats salmon and eggs to maintain his muscle mass not actually a vegan? And why would anyone need to consume animal foods to maintain muscle mass? There are lots of muscled-up vegans in the world. Just ask the vegans. They can all name the same two or three vegan bodybuilders.

So what we’ve got is a formerly overweight president who eats a lot of vegetables, fruit, nuts and legumes, doesn’t consume white flour, recommends whipped cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes, and eats salmon and eggs now and then to maintain his muscle mass.

And it’s giving up meat and dairy that made him healthier? I don’t think so.

[Starke]

(09-15-2013 11:06 AM)bacon Wrote:  

I read this the other day it was a critic of Bill Clintons Vegan Diet but it seems relevant to the discussion.

The article was penned by a conspiracist (Tom Naughton) with no qualifications or experience relevant to nutrition who uses scandal and hyperbole to make money from the sale of some DVDs of questionable quality.
Read more on Tom here http://thescienceofnutrition.wordpress.c...-fat-head/

Anybody can get heart disease, but low/healthy-fat diets such as East Asian, Mediterranean or plant-based have been statistically proven to substantially reduce the likelihood of it.

By the same token, plenty of non-smokers contract lung cancer at some point in life. But if you start smoking 40 a day, Vegas odds are dropping drastically.

[bacon]

(09-15-2013 11:27 AM)Starke Wrote:  

Anybody can get heart disease, but low/healthy-fat diets such as East Asian, Mediterranean or plant-based have been statistically proven to substantially reduce the likelihood of it.

So the guy isnt a scientist but if you look at his website or watch his film he uses scientists opinions to base his decision that animal/plant fats (outside of vegetable oils) are good for you, fill you up and lead you do not want to snack constantly(ie keep your weight in check). The whole premise of his film is that fats (the right kinds) are not bad for you as people are lead to believe and in fact should be one of the bases of your diet.

How do you make sense of the french paradox given the countries high per capita consumption of fats yet relatively low heart disease(in spite of the smoking).

[Hades]

Naw, Starke, Tom Naughton might be a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who thinks that the towers were knocked over by rogue Reptillian overlords in a plot to prevent the discovery of Nibiru while they take over the government but his dietary criticisms are all valid and pretty well backed by the scientific community.

[Jazzman92]

The reasons why vegans generally have such shitty physiques and look so frail is because of micronutrient and macronutrient deficiencies. Meat contains plenty of b-vitamins, iron and zinc. Now you can get to normal levels with correct supplementation but without that its virtually impossible to maintain healthy and optimal levels. Another thing to consider is that since meat is flesh, the iron found in the meat is from the blood of the animal and therefore it contains the heme iron where as in the plants it is non-heme iron. Basically not only is there more iron in meat compared to vegetables, it's also much more easily absorbed and integrated into the body.

http://www.mckinley.illinois.edu/handout..._iron.html

In terms of macronutrient deficiencies vegans do not get the 9 essential amino acids unless they complement the food sources together. For example, if you look at the mexican culture one of their staple dishes is beans and rice. This is called protein complementation. All of the essential amino acids are obtained because rice and beans each have essential amino acids that the other lacks. Animal protein contains all the amino acids and its much easily digested and absorbed in the body.

Unless you're really careful and manage your diet with diligence, the vegan diet will lead to physiological dysfunctions. Personally I think if your diet incorporates lots of vegetables, lean and organic meats, lots of healthy fats and some tubers and grains you should be alright.

[Starke]

(09-15-2013 11:49 AM)Hades Wrote:  

Naw, Starke, Tom Naughton might be a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who thinks that the towers were knocked over by rogue Reptillian overlords in a plot to prevent the discovery of Nibiru while they take over the government but his dietary criticisms are all valid and pretty well backed by the scientific community.

Not really. The sources used by him tend to be MDs, who aren't really qualified to be giving pronouncements on broad-scope nutrition (you can find an MD in any part of the world who will back up any claim if you give them a sufficiently high consulting fee).

Epidemiological data is rightly favored by the scientific community over anecdotal claims.
The epidemiological data shows that rates of cardiovascular disease have increased in tandem with increasing consumption of red meats since the advent of factory farming in the 1950s.

Nations where the diet consists of fruits, veg and/or healthy meats (fish/game etc.) live longer and demonstrate far lower levels of lifestyle diseases.

(Epidemiology of cardivascular disease)

(09-15-2013 11:41 AM)bacon Wrote:  

How do you make sense of the french paradox given the countries high per capita consumption of fats yet relatively low heart disease(in spite of the smoking).

As I alluded to in my previous post, the Meditteranean diet is a good one and quite different from the American one. French people get up to 80% of their fat intake from vegetables and high quality organic dairy (not the trash commonly sold in Western supermarkets).

Also, while Brits and Americans are more likely to consume pork chops and steaks, the French are far more likely to eat large amounts of seafood. Red meats are often used more as a condiment in French cuisine.

Such is the stubborn nature of the Frenchies, they have resisted embracing the typical Western diet but the eating habits of the younger generation are slowly becoming more globalized.
This was presented as a reason for the so-called French paradox in the British Medical Journal;

Quote:

"We propose that the difference is due to the time lag between increases in consumption of animal fat and serum cholesterol concentrations and the resulting increase in mortality from heart disease—similar to the recognised time lag between smoking and lung cancer. Consumption of animal fat and serum cholesterol concentrations increased only recently in France but did so decades ago in Britain
Evidence supports this explanation: mortality from heart disease across countries, including France, correlates strongly with levels of animal fat consumption and serum cholesterol in the past (30 years ago)...."

[Starke]

(09-15-2013 12:12 PM)Jazzman92 Wrote:  

Another thing to consider is that since meat is flesh, the iron found in the meat is from the blood of the animal and therefore it contains the heme iron where as in the plants it is non-heme iron.

Basically not only is there more iron in meat compared to vegetables, it's also much more easily absorbed and integrated into the body.

The non-heme iron issue would only be relevant if you were deficient in Vitamin C (adequate Vit-C is essential for the digestion of plant-based iron).

A deficiency would only effect someone who doesn't eat fresh fruit (ie the typical obese Tumblr lesbian vegan who subsists on a diet of Quorn-burgers, self-loathing, Doritos and Oreo cookes, or an 18th century seaman).

[deathtofatties]

(09-15-2013 03:39 AM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  

I'm liking this thread, keep it up deathtofatties.

I've been vegan myself for the past 4 years. No one's ever been able to tell. Chicks have actually told me my skin looks great. To which I responded theirs looks like shit (most of the time it really did look bad...acne and what not...they also always loved eating meat and dairy)

That being said, I am completely open for any criticism of veganism. I think it is important to be critical of one's own choices. Nevertheless the arguments I've seen so far have really weak.

Got say I love doctor greger though, dudes killing it with those nutritional videos

Amen brother.

[deathtofatties]

I think where lot of Vegans screw up is A. not enough fruits and green vegetables B. still eating processed food. C. still using artificial sweetners. and D. not getting essential vitamins like B12 from a pill.

There are too many vegans out there eating artificially sweetened crap, funnel cakes, and french fries. They are doing it wrong.

Unless it's a vitamin pill, avoid consuming man made shit.

[Doctor]

I haven't taken the time to link the studies, but here we go anyways.
-Studies show that fruits and veggies are all genetically modified and are going to give you cancer and early onset baldness.
-Studies show that fruits and veggies are laden with pesticides and various other chemicals that will kill you.
-Studies show that meats (almost any meat in fact) taste better than veggies and possibly fruits.
-Studies show that a balanced diet of various meat/fish (especially grass fed/wild caught) along with fruits and vegetables works pretty well. Some studies also show increase in success when a well balanced diet is combined with a consistent exercise program.
-If you are looking to, debatably, possibly add another 5-10 years to your life by not eating red meat, you're just going to have more years of the shittiest period of your life.
-Studies show that India doesn't eat red meat correlating with poverty and being unpopular with women.

[Basil Ransom]

Quote:

As Denise Minger pointed out her AHS 2011 speech, what do Ornish, McDougall, Esselstyn and other big-name doctors promoting veganism as the cure for heart disease have in common? They have their patients give up sugar, white flour (and most other refined carbohydrates), processed vegetable oils, processed foods, smoking and alcohol. Oh, and meat and dairy products, too. They also prescribe lots and lots of fresh vegetables.

This is a great point. For all the infighting among nutrition experts, their prescriptions are much closer to each other than they are to the typical American diet. Cut sugar, avoid white flour, grass fed meat is preferable to grain fed meat, organic and free range are usually superior, eat lots of vegetables and fruit (especially ones with a high micronutrient : fructose ratio), and vary your food.

[Hades]

The vegan diet gets a lot right, but they exclude meat for seemingly no reason.
A decent lifter could be at the peak of health eating a (no soy) vegan diet for breakfast and lunch, then eating half a dozen eggs and two steaks for dinner.

Grass fed beef is also top quality and preferable but eating grain fed or grass finished beef is an acceptable (and much cheaper) substitute.

[mental]

Why convert to veganism when it's far easier to eat both meat and vegetables? Veganism is supposed to be healthy but I don't see how artificial zync and vitamin supplements are healthier than just eating a bit of meat. If you're worried about looking good just hit the gym instead, it's far easier than micromanaging and worrying if you took too much or too little calories and supplements. I don't particularly care what or how much I eat, but that's easily offset by going to the gym and walking outside instead of sitting home all day.

[MikeCF]

Well, there are different kinds of vegans. You can be a vegan while eating oreos.

I've experimented with veganism. If you only eat clean vegan foods (fruits, vegetables, and lentils/beans), your shit will not stink.

I'm not kidding. My poop didn't smell, and I used to destroy some bathrooms.

You start to wonder. Is it natural for your poop to stink? We take it for granted that our poop stinks. Yet if you're a raw vegan eating clean foods, your poop will not have any smell.

But I started losing muscle pretty quickly.

Maybe some guys can keep a bigger body while a vegan, but it doesn't work for me.

If I cared less about gaining size, I'd be either a raw vegan.

As a country it's no doubt we eat too much meat and not enough fruits and vegetables.

Fat people ask, "Where do you get your protein?" If you're fat, a protein deficiency (doesn't matter) should be the least of your concerns.

[Starke]

(09-15-2013 02:59 PM)mental Wrote:  

Why convert to veganism when it's far easier to eat both meat and vegetables? Veganism is supposed to be healthy but I don't see how artificial zync and vitamin supplements are healthier than just eating a bit of meat. If you're worried about looking good just hit the gym instead, it's far easier than micromanaging and worrying if you took too much or too little calories and supplements. I don't particularly care what or how much I eat, but that's easily offset by going to the gym and walking outside instead of sitting home all day.

Putting in regular gym time is great, and puts you ahead of 90% of the population in the short-term at least.

Long-term health comes from diet, doesn't matter whether it's Paleo, Vegan, Fasting, Atkins, Cannibalism etc.
People who apply a logic to their diet and cut out foods with overwhelming negative effects are far more likely to be healthy well into middle and old age.


Also, artificial zinc? Can't they just eat leafy greens, mushrooms, nuts or beans (all are rich in zinc).

[MikeCF]

FYI, if you ever get into a serious relationship or have children with a woman, make your girl a raw vegan.

The raw vegan diet is amazing for women.

A woman who eats a raw vegan diet is going to avoid hitting the wall for another 5-10 years.

[DVY]

^^^I went through a low meat-phase for 1 year at the end of grad school. I lost about 25 lbs. Probably a combo of stress+diet. I also partied/drank hard 3 times/week.

I got hideously skinny (aka lost most of my muscle mass and fat).-158 lbs/ 6ft 2

I returned home, and everybody thought I had gotten sick or something. Added red meat, eggs, steaks in and voila up almost 30 lbs in a year. 188lbs.

Edit- I still look plenty skinny and have tons more weight to go.

[MrXY]

The vegans I've encountered looked awful- washed out looking skin, stringy, emaciated muscles, bad posture, low energy, total lack of vitality

[blackglasses]

to look better: drink a gallon of water a day.

[kbell]

From the book perfect health diet it seems you can do well on 20% protein and 40-60% fats and the rest carbs. The only major problem I have seen from eating a ton of meat is that you will have high trypophan levels. Ray Peat has some interesting theories on this. Offal may be even healthier but harder to get.

As for your average meat eater, he is also eating a ton of refined modified dwarf wheat, refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, omega 6 and 9 heavy refined seed and soy oils and also tons of corn. Drop that out and even a mcdonalds eater would be much healthier than before. Granted grass-fed meats and fish would be even healthier.

I'd love to see huge tests between Vegan and Paleo, but I have feeling they would always have some obnoxious confounding factor to gum up the results. But if vegan works for you go for it, I just don't think its a good choice for a lot of people.

[MikeCF]

"The vegans I've encountered looked awful- washed out looking skin, stringy, emaciated muscles, bad posture, low energy, total lack of vitality"

How do the vast majority of America's look - including those males in their mid-20s who (hormonally soeaking) should be in the prime of their life?

[Hades]

(09-15-2013 12:30 PM)Starke Wrote:  

(09-15-2013 11:49 AM)Hades Wrote:  

Naw, Starke, Tom Naughton might be a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who thinks that the towers were knocked over by rogue Reptillian overlords in a plot to prevent the discovery of Nibiru while they take over the government but his dietary criticisms are all valid and pretty well backed by the scientific community.

Not really. The sources used by him tend to be MDs, who aren't really qualified to be giving pronouncements on broad-scope nutrition (you can find an MD in any part of the world who will back up any claim if you give them a sufficiently high consulting fee).

Epidemiological data is rightly favored by the scientific community over anecdotal claims.
The epidemiological data shows that rates of cardiovascular disease have increased in tandem with increasing consumption of red meats since the advent of factory farming in the 1950s.

Nations where the diet consists of fruits, veg and/or healthy meats (fish/game etc.) live longer and demonstrate far lower levels of lifestyle diseases.

Correlation is not necessarily causation.
The average guy today also drinks and smokes less, probably weighs thirty pounds more, eats significantly more grain products and HFCS (mutated franken-grains that also had their advent in the 50s - 70s, courtesy of norm borlaug), eats more total calories, has lower testosterone, sleeps less, probably fucks less, and watches fewer John Wayne movies, yet the only factor that could have possibly contributed to more cardiovascular disease is (and must) be inferior meat consumption alone? Is that what you're asserting here?

I can agree that factory farmed meat is inferior and not as healthy as grass-fed. If we're getting diseases from eating grains, then feeding grains to animals and eating them is consuming diseased meat. They have to inject these cattle with all kinds of antibiotics so they don't die from overcrowding and their inferior diet.

I also can't disagree with the bolded. The vegan and raw food movement has done a great service to paleo advocates like myself in making better food more available. That being said, there's too many factors you're ignoring to make a solid case for eliminating meat, even the shitty factory farm variety.

One of the bigger cultural factors you're overlooking here is that a lot of those mediterranean countries have all kinds of religious holidays where you must fast, or they only eat one fairly large evening meal per day.
Even with a very shitty standard american diet, an intermittent fasting protocol will turn a sad fatty in a somewhat chubby dude with a great blood profile and comparatively lower insulin resistance. It's that chronically elevated insulin and inflammation that kills more quickly.

[mental]

(09-15-2013 03:35 PM)Starke Wrote:  

(09-15-2013 02:59 PM)mental Wrote:  

Why convert to veganism when it's far easier to eat both meat and vegetables? Veganism is supposed to be healthy but I don't see how artificial zync and vitamin supplements are healthier than just eating a bit of meat. If you're worried about looking good just hit the gym instead, it's far easier than micromanaging and worrying if you took too much or too little calories and supplements. I don't particularly care what or how much I eat, but that's easily offset by going to the gym and walking outside instead of sitting home all day.

Putting in regular gym time is great, and puts you ahead of 90% of the population in the short-term at least.

Long-term health comes from diet, doesn't matter whether it's Paleo, Vegan, Fasting, Atkins, Cannibalism etc.
People who apply a logic to their diet and cut out foods with overwhelming negative effects are far more likely to be healthy well into middle and old age.


Also, artificial zinc? Can't they just eat leafy greens, mushrooms, nuts or beans (all are rich in zinc).

Point taken, but still it's too much micromanaging, at least for me - a little meat wouldn't hurt, all mandatory supplements that you need to add to a vegan diet are already there, and those supplements are far easier absorbed into the body; why worry if you added enough zync through beans or if you're taken essential vitamin pill if you can just eat high quality red meat or fish 2-3 times a week? I applaud guys who look great and are in great shape while being vegan, because they're more of an anomaly than regular occurence. While I try to add variety to my diet, it's more of a guideline than strict diet, but so far it's worked great for me - there are no problems with my health so far.

About that last point: I'd like more explanation. They way I figured it out is: if you burn all the excess fat, cholesterol and other fattening things through exercise (note that I'm not really including constantly eating fast food, snacks and all other "bad" food that contain various Exxx's and other artificial stuff, which I try not to eat for more than 2-3 times a week, since I believe that if you don't eat too much of "bad" foods, they are filtered by your body before any bad effects can occur) their effects are negated because there's no excess fat or cholesterol to fuck up your body.